You might find this interesting.
From Yahoo!
Naveen's email to the board.
by: ad_whitepages 04/26/03 11:18 pm
Msg: 489522 of 489565
Here is what naveen sent to Jim Voelker and the board.
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Dear Mr. Voelker,
The purpose of this email is to advise you of my resignation from the InfoSpace Board of Directors effective immediately, and to provide a very abbreviated statement of the reasons for this decision.
First, this decision is unrelated to the current effort to prevent me from engaging in the public records search business and related activities of my new company, Intelius.
InfoSpace is not in the public records search business, but, instead, sells advertising to companies that are in that business. Any decision by InfoSpace to sell public records search results directly--i.e., to compete with its current advertisers--would assure the disappearance of millions of dollars of InfoSpace advertising revenue from existing public records search companies with no reason to believe that InfoSpace could replace that revenue via its own efforts to compete in that arena.
As you are aware, US Search alone was one of the top 10 revenue generator for infospace in 2002. To go into competition with, US Search, KnowX, Online Detective and People-data, some of the top advertisers of InfoSpace would, in my view, be madness--trading solid advertising revenue for a doomed speculation that InfoSpace itself could marginally increase that revenue.
In any case, InfoSpace has made no such decision to go into this business. Doing so would require board approval because of the large sums of revenue at stake, and no such question has ever been presented to the board. The position InfoSpace took in the recent hearings that York Baur has decided to go into this business is ludicrous. York Baur has/had no such decision-making authority, no such decision has been made, and the notion that Intelius is competing with InfoSpace in the public records search business is fanciful. InfoSpace is selling advertising to companies that are in that business, including Enformion.
My reasons for stepping down relates to the fact that I am no longer able to exercise my fiduciary duty to the shareholders of InfoSpace.
I am very concerned about my continued participation on a board that has done nothing of substance in response to clear and convincing evidence of improper actions by management and by certain directors that require prompt investigation and decisive action. I will not repeat at any length facts of which you are all too aware relating to trading of votes for compensation deals and other improprieties and illegal activities of management team and certain board members.
The board's unwillingness to pursue these very legitimate concerns in any meaningful way, coupled with a management that is willing to engage in improper activities, creates, in my view, a completely unacceptable situation for my continuation on the board of directors. There is no practical way for me to discharge my responsibilities as a board member where management is willing to be deceptive and the board is unwilling and unable to look behind its representations.
Accordingly, I am resigning from the board of directors effective immediately. |
